Receive Your Copy Between Worlds: Essays On Culture And Belonging Put Together By Marilyn R. Gardner Distributed As Manuscript

I didn't realize that this book was about being an adult Third Culture Kid, so I was expecting to read more about living overseas in general.
I still enjoyed the stories and filed away some wisdom for raising kids abroad, I would imagine this book resonates clearly with its target audience,
The book wasn't edited well, which didn't bother me, It did bother me that it occasionally reads as if no one else experiences grief, awkwardness, or instability except TCKs.
While they definitely experience more of these things than most people, I wonder how many read her words and think that others can't be empathetic or that they don't need to be empathetic themselves.
I wish she had recommended that TCKs seek support from qualified professionals when they struggle rather than bearing those struggles as a badge of honor that sometimes cripples them.

Regardless, it's an enjoyable read with interesting perspectives on faith and travel and will probably be helpful for me in parenting a TCK in the future.
I cried a lot, reading this book, It helped me heal and helped answer some of my questions about calling and identity and belonging, I felt so seen, so connected, in ways I don't often feel in the expat world, even though Marilyn and I are quite different.
I wish I would have read it years earlier, I highly recommend this to any expat or to anyone who is heading overseas, I mainly started reading this to learn about my cross cultural kids that I'm bringing up but as a Third Culture adult I found it useful and interesting too, and just plain enjoyable.
I wish I could describe things like this author does, I'm usually not a tea drinker but I always find myself wanting some when I'm reading anything by Marilyn Gardner.
As somebody who plans to live abroad, this book spoke to me, While I sense that Marilyn Gardner has many, many fascinating stories to tell, in these essays, she focuses on what these stories mean.
She tells us what it is like to be a third culture kid, to be a stranger in one's homeland, to find oneself in situations most Americans can scarcely imagine.
And she tells this in a way that anyone can learn from, whether or not they have had any of the same experiences.

I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review, While the book was written for TCKs third culture kids I am a mom ofTCKs and an expat for almostyears, I so get it.
I don't fit in the US any more, I don't fit in my adopted country either, Marilyn shares her heart stories of growing up in Pakistan and then returning to the US for college.
She marries and returns to her life outside the US to only return several years later,

A series of essays share her heart thoughts,

A book that helps me to realize I am not alone, I won this book by entering a Goodreads Giveaway,

I really enjoyed reading this book of essays, It was a book I could set down and easily pick back up in a few days, I found it very interesting to hear about Marilyn's experiences

in living overseas for most of her life and coming "home" to visit.
She has lived a very interesting life and was seen as an outcast because of the life her parents chose for her.
The tales of boarding school, vacations and everyday life that she led I found interesting, I would love to visit the places that she lived and visited, It is a great read for someone who would love to travel but may not have the means to do so, you can imagine what it would be like through her stories.
"For the one whose heart is set on pilgrimage, goodbyes add up, . . So when she comes to you, dont ask her where shes from, or whats troubling her, Ask her where shes lived, Ask her what shes left behind, Open doors. And just listen. " One of my favorite quotes from Eugene H, Peterson a writer whose work I devour comes from the foreword to a book he didnt write, called Sidewalks in the Kingdom.
“I find that cultivating a sense of place as the exclusive and irreplaceable setting for following Jesus is even more difficult than persuading men and women of the truth of the message of Jesus,” Peterson, a longtime pastor, writes.
“Gods great love and purposes for us are worked out in the messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, daily work, working with us as we are and not as we should be, and where we are and not where we would like to be.
”

Ive resonated with those words ever since reading them a decade ago, At the time, I was living and working in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a city I had come to love.
I was that guy who walked everywhere he could, including work noticing cracks in the sidewalks, graffiti on the backs of street signs, potted plants on stoops.
I was the guy who hung out in locallyowned coffee shops and stopped by the farmers market on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
I was that guy with the “I Heart City Life” bumper sticker on the back of his car.
I belonged.

But I was simultaneously also an outsider, similar in certain ways with the refugees I served in my job as a caseworker.
While one of my friends from Lancaster can trace his familys roots in the area backgenerations, my family had only settled there in.
We were transplants, newbies. And although we could speak the language and look the part, we hadnt come from a neighboring county or somewhere like New Jersey.
We had come from Guatemala, a land so utterly mysterious that stories from our life there tended to draw blank stares.


When I eventually got married and moved across the country to Arizona, I sensed in some of my Pennsylvania friends an attitude of inevitability, the idea that Lancaster was more or less just a layover for me albeit ayear one, between Guatemala and wherever I was off to next.
Perhaps in some ways, they were right more so than this nomad realized at the time,

Needless to say, the idea of place is a complicated one for people like me, And by people like me, I mean third culture kids those of us who have spent formative years in a culture other than that of their parents.
Its for that reason that I feel an immediate connection to others who have grown up between cultures, even if I know virtually nothing about the specific context of their upbringing and they know little of mine.
Thats also why I so appreciate reading the stories of other TCKs, like the ones Marilyn Gardner shares in her book, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging.


“Third culture kids have stories, Their stories are detailed and vibrant, Stories of travel between worlds, of crosscultural relationships and connections, of grief and of loss, of goodbyes and hellos and more goodbyes,” Gardner writes.
“Every good story has a conflict, Never being fully part of any world is ours, This is what makes our stories and memories rich and worth hearing, We live between worlds, sometimes comfortable in one, sometimes in the other, but only truly comfortable in the space between.
This is our conflict and the heart of our story, ”

Gardner herself grew up in Pakistan, spending formative years living far from her parents at a boarding school.
As an adult, she finds herself feeling nostalgic about the taste and smell of chai tea, shopping for a shalwar kameez at the bazaar, and waking up before dawn to the sound of the call to prayer just as I experience nostalgia for the taste of tortillas and tamalitos made over an open fire, the intoxicating/nauseating smell of dust and diesel looking at you, Bruce Cockburn!, and family visits to Lago de Atitlán, the most beautiful lake in the world.


Gardner captures the importance of sharing these memories with anyone who will listen:

The more I hear from immigrants, refugees and third culture kids, the more I am convinced that communicating our stories is a critical part of adjusting to life in our passport countries.
We have a lifetime of experiences that when boxed up for fear of misunderstanding, will result in depression and deep pain.
As we tell our stories we realize that these transitions and moves are all a part of a bigger narrative, a narrative that is strong and solid and gives meaning to our lives.
As we learn to tell our stories we understand not only the complexity of our experience, but the complexity of the human experience, the human heart.
So we learn to tell our stories because your story, my story, and our stories matter,

Between Worlds may not be a book for everyone, It will certainly resonate most deeply with my fellow TCKs, Then again, we all live in an increasingly mobile, uprooted age, Few of us will spend our entire lives in one place, Whether its for school, or a job, or a relationship, most of us will move, and moving from one place to another means learning to live between worlds.


None of this, it should be said, diminishes the importance and value of place, The places we live matter all of them, even if we carry many places with us in our hearts.
With Peterson, I can wholeheartedly affirm that the place where we are, right now, is the “exclusive and irreplaceable setting” for becoming the kind of people we were made to be.


Being able to trace your family linegenerations back in the place you were born and raised is a beautiful thing, and its natural to envy a story like that.
But thats not my story its probably not your story either, Thats why, rather than seeing my life as a story marked by deprivation deprived of one place and one people to which I unambiguously belong Ive chosen to see my life as one enriched by a kaleidoscope of people and places, each one beautiful, each one irreplaceable in its uniqueness.
Se você acha que a pergunta mais difícil de se responder nesse universo é "de onde você é", então esse livro é pra você! Mas tbm deveria ser leitura obrigatória para pais que pensam em levar seus filhos para viver em outra cultura para filhos que se sentem em casa em todo e em nenhum lugar para organizações que pretendem enviar seus "funcionários" para viver transculturalmente e para as pessoas de coração sensível que querem entender aquele vizinho ou amigo que parece ser daqui mas que na verdade é de lá.
. . muuuito bom! A autora coloca em palavras tudo aquilo que eu sinto e sou, . e sei que não estou sozinha, . . pena que ainda não tem em português, . An excellent read for all, but especially for those who have lived cross culturally or call more than one location on earth "home".
The words "between worlds" is the perfect description of a TCK life, and Gardner has captured the beauty and pain of living that life.
As an adult living abroad and raising TCKs, I appreciated her brutal honesty to know what my kids will feel and enjoyed her humor and wisdom.
In the end, I feel she leaves us readers with the thought that this nomadic life is hard.
. . but worth it. Window to My Soul

Although I am not a TCK, I raised four of them in three countries.
This book, written by an ATCK, touches so many aspects of what it's truly like to live 'between worlds', that I will come back to it again and again for inspiration and an extra dose of wisdom as I apply Marilyn's to my own experiences.
I would recommend this to any TCKs, crosscultural workers, anyone who works with TCKs, and any spouse or friend of a TCK.
I give it a fivestar rating, because it touched my soul, So relatable!

As someone who lived outside of her passport country, underwent reentry, and left again this time bringing children, this deeply resonated.
I derived meaning not just for myself, but also my children who insist they are from Egypt, Theyve been here sincemonths old, so I guess theres some truth there, This looks at the expat/TCK experience through the lens of a TCK/missionary kid who also took her children abroad.
I really enjoyed! I rated the book with three just because most of what's in the book is not new to me.
Ms. Gardner is a good writer and I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes, I appreciated the book enough that I would recommend it to TCK's who are struggling with certain aspects of entering into their passport culture.
I can't say enough good things about this book! To anyone who moved a lot, lived overseas, has a loved one who's lived overseas, has returned from living someplace very different, or just an American kid of divorce bouncing between worlds, THIS IS YOUR BOOK.


It covers everything from preparing to leave to reentry struggles, The author's story telling style is ready to read,

WARNING: You may end up highlighting so many things that you decide to tag it again.